


Fucking Congress

by scissorphishe



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Canon Queer Character, Character of Color, Community: help_haiti, Explicit Language, Gift Fic, Grief, Happy Ending, Jewish Character, M/M, Politics, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-01
Updated: 2010-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-08 14:11:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scissorphishe/pseuds/scissorphishe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Scott Brown wins Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, Rahm turns to Barney Frank for encouragement. Also sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fucking Congress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [songquake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/songquake/gifts).



> Written for help_haiti. Many thanks to songquake for the prompt, a great deal of patience, and the generous donation to Oxfam!
> 
> (Also, by the way: really, really not kidding about the "explicit language" part. If you don't like the f-word, proceed at your own risk.)

At 3:17 AM on January 20, 2010, Barney Frank is rudely awoken -- in more than one sense -- by a phone call.

"Hello?"

"FUCK."

Barney sighs. "Rahm."

"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK. THAT KNUCKLEFUCK--"

"Rahm--"

"What the fuck do you want?"

"Rahm, _you_ called _me_. Usually when people call someone, it's because they want to have a conversation. If they just want to yell obscenities, they can do that in the privacy of their own homes. Or at least during actual daylight hours."

"No. You know what, Barney? No. The world is gonna hear just how pissed off I am, okay? That Cosmo-boy teabagger knucklefuck! In Teddy Kennedy's senate seat! In Massa-_fucking_-chusetts, too, which the President won by twenty-six points, I'll have you know."

"Yes, Rahm, I watch the news."

"Fuck the news!"

"Do you actually have a point, or are you just adding 'fuck' to the first words that come to mind?"

There is an uncharacteristic silence on the other end of the line, and when Rahm speaks again, Barney can hear no more anger in his voice, no spitting cursing yelling anger to which he is so accustomed. Rahm's voice is soft and almost, perhaps, begging. "_Teddy Kennedy's_ seat," Rahm says again, voice low and taut, as if it's being pulled in all directions by stress and frustration and shame. "How did we let this happen? _Teddy Kennedy_ \-- not three months gone, and now this -- and us on our first anniversary of being inaugurated, and look what we've got to fucking show for it--" and his voice stretches so hard that it breaks.

Barney softens. God, _Rahm Emanuel_ is practically crying to him on the phone at three in the morning over losing Ted Kennedy's senate seat. Which, yes, is actually very upsetting. When you're sufficiently awake to feel anything besides groggy and cranky, that is.

"Rahm," he says, more kindly. "I know. It -- I'm dealing with this too, okay? Look, get some sleep, I'm sure you're exhausted, and call me back sometime. Tomorrow, if you want."

Rahm makes a strangled sort of noise and cuts it off halfway through.

Barney prods gently. "We won't accomplish anything by cussing out Scott Brown while half asleep. Go on, go to bed for once; it really will look better in the morning."

Rahm snorts. "Oh, you're my mommy now?" Barney is honestly glad to hear him being rude and Rahm-ish again, instead of broken and begging.

"Yes, I believe you're up past your bedtime, young man," he teases, and is gratified by the huff of half-laughter from the other end.

"Christ, what I'd give to _have_ something remotely resembling a bedtime," Rahm grumbles, and Barney relaxes all the way, because Rahm is back to normal.

Well, not quite all the way. There's still tomorrow, and the days and weeks and months after, and an extremely important legislative clusterfuck that just got even clusterfuckier because of a stupid _guy with a truck_. But tonight they will sleep and try not to worry too much, because that's the best they can do.

"Yeah, well," says Barney, "you can make" -- he looks at the clock -- "three twenty-six your bedtime for tonight. We'll talk tomorrow. All of us. You know we're all in this together."

"Yeah yeah, spare me the kissyface touchy-feely shit," says Rahm, so characteristically that Barney smiles and almost falls back asleep out of sheer comfort (okay, exhaustion might have played a minor role as well). Good old toughtalking Rahm.

"Now go get rid of those bags under your eyes; they're really unattractive," he tells Rahm affectionately. Rahm just makes a rude noise and hangs up (at last) -- but not, Barney can tell, without feeling better. He rolls over, pulls the covers over his head, and sighs. Tonight they get to feel better, but tomorrow they'll have to go back to feeling like crap. Day in the life of a U.S. congressman.

***

"We fucking lost." Rahm stands before the President's desk hanging his head like a petulant child: disappointed and angry and guilty. Despite the hung head, though, he eyes the President hopefully.

Barack just sits there, fingers steepled, gazing calmly at him. "I know."

"_I_ fucking lost it."

Still Barack waits.

"Mr. President -- I should have done more. I fucked it up, I'm so sorry--"

"You know this wasn't really your responsibility, Rahm."

"Fuck that, I'm the White House Chief of Staff and I'm supposed to get shit done for you and I didn't, and now health care reform's _really_ going to hell in a handbasket and it's -- it's Ted Kennedy's seat -- I lost _Ted Kennedy's_ seat --"

Barack quirks a half-smile. "I wouldn't go that far, Rahm, you're getting a little self-important. There were a lot of us working on that campaign and there were a lot of factors that determined the outcome. Frankly, the actual candidate didn't help matters."

Oh, fuck this, Rahm thinks, and drops the pretense. "Mr. President, sir -- I did a bad job, and I ought to be punished. Aren't you mad at me for screwing this up? Don't you want to just -- slap me or something?"

The President sits up straighter. "You know I don't believe in physical discipline."

Rahm fidgets, disappointed, still hoping.

"However," the President continues, "you're right. This was a very important campaign; a vitally important issue depended on it; and I depend on you. I am very disappointed in you, young man."

On Rahm's face, the humility only deepens, but on the inside he feels better already, triumphant with his imminent victory. "Yes, Mr. President. In fact you might even say it was a crime, letting Cosmo Truck Guy win."

Sure enough, the President reaches for the secret drawer in the Oval Office desk, unlocks it and pulls out a pair of handcuffs. "Katie," he calls to his secretary, "are there any important meetings I'm supposed to be in right now?"

"At least four, Mr. President," says Katie.

"Any meetings the world will end without?"

"Not until after lunch, sir."

"Good. Clear my appointments for the next hour, then, please," says the President, and Rahm shivers where's he's standing, in anticipation.

The President turns back to him. "A crime indeed," he intones, fingering the handcuffs. "You have the right to remain silent," and he grips Rahm's wrists and encloses them securely in the handcuffs.

Obediently, Rahm says nothing, only swallows. Hard.

***

The committee meeting is dragging on unusually long, and is filled with an unusual amount of bullshit, even for Congress, and Barney's patience is consequently wearing unusually thin. The caffeine of his coffee is wearing off, and his head aches.

Happily, his phone chooses that moment to start buzzing.

And it's the President's secretary.

"Good morning, Congressman," says Katie. "The President wants you to come over as soon as possible. He says Rahm Emanuel needs to talk to you."

For once Rahm is calling him at a convenient time, Barney'll give him that much. "Thanks, Katie," he says, and means it. "I'll be over right away."

He closes his phone and says to the others, "Excuse me, everybody; the President summons me." The lofty air of his announcement does nothing to hide his relish at making it. Sometimes, when your colleagues are being incorrigible asses, it does wonders for the soul to rub in just how much closer to the President you are than they. In most walks of life, this might make Barney a bit of an ass himself, but as far as Congress goes, he's practically a saint.

***

Barney follows his summons through the snow, white ground to White House. He pants through the cold, breath disappearing in the sudden warmth of the building. Katie nods him in to the Oval Office, where he finds the President but, mysteriously, no Rahm.

"Good morning, Mr. President," he says. "How can I help? What's going on?"

Barack frowns. "We were in the middle of -- well, you can guess," he says, nodding at the bottle of lube lying on the Oval Office desk. Barney can indeed guess; he gave Rahm this bottle himself. "And then Rahm got upset and lost interest. I don't know what happened; he's the one who initiated this in the first place. I tried his favorite--" he nods at the dildo on the couch, "and I even got out the kinkier stuff--" He pulls a whip out of his desk drawer. Barney's eyes pop just a little. Barack continues, "But none of it worked. He just -- broke down and started -- ranting, sort of, and I couldn't calm him down. He just kept saying that he wanted to talk to you."

Barney looks around. "Where is he?"

"In the study."

Barney nods and starts to leave the room, but Barack stops him. He rummages through his desk drawer and pulls out a few thin ropes, then grabs the bottle of lube. "Here," he says to Barney. "Bring these with you. Maybe he'll be more in the mood for ropes than for handcuffs."

"I thought you said you couldn't get him into it again."

Despite the tenseness of the situation, Barack smiles slightly. "Yeah, because he said he needed to talk to you. Now you're here. I have a feeling he'll regain interest soon enough."

So into Barney's pocket go the ropes and lube, and down the hall toward Rahm goes Barney.

***

The chair in the presidential study is distinctly uncomfortable, but Rahm kind of feels he deserves it.

Of course, the President doesn't, and Rahm's going have to do something about this chair later.

But just then Barney Frank interrupts his thoughts by walking through the door and coming to stand face to face with Rahm.

Rahm knows Barney is only here because Rahm asked for him, and that Rahm is being rude by not getting up or even saying anything, but still he remains stubbornly on the offending chair, head in his hands, and stews in his grief and guilt.

He cannot shake the feeling that Ted Kennedy was the last and greatest, and now that he's gone they're failing him on the issue he cared about most. And by that measure they might just as well fail at everything. They've already failed at keeping his seat, and they seem to be failing at achieving his dream, and so, Rahm thinks, they pretty much just fail at life.

He, Rahm Emanuel, lifelong overachiever -- brilliant fundraiser, dancer, triathlete, self-made millionaire, White House Chief of Staff under two different presidents -- he of the foulest mouth and the fiercest fight in this whole goddamn fucked-up town -- he who takes no prisoners, sends his enemies dead fish, stabs tables, chopped off half his finger, battled a potentially fatal fever and lived to dance another day -- he is failing one of the greatest Democratic politicians of his lifetime. He already failed under Clinton; to fail again, now that Ted Kennedy has left them, has entrusted the completion of his life's work to them -- is unthinkable. Unforgivable.

"Unbearable."

Without meaning to, he says the word aloud. Barney raises his eyebrows and fixes him with a fierce stare. Very deliberately he hooks two fingers through Rahm's belt loop, hauls him up out of his seat, then yanks him closer and heads straight for his zipper. "You think _that's_ unbearable, Rahm? You think fighting Congress is an impossible task? Kid, you ain't seen nothing yet." With one hand he pins Rahm's arms swiftly behind his back; with the other he pulls a rope from his pocket, swiftly binds Rahm's wrists, tight and rough, and then shoves his hands down the front of Rahm's pants and grabs on tight. Rahm chokes.

"So what happened?" Barney demands.

The rope cuts into Rahm's wrists as he fidgets unhappily. "He had me locked up and was telling me I was a disappointing young man, 'cause you know that's his way of saying 'You've been a very bad boy' -- and, I mean, I started it, really -- but then it all of a sudden just hit me. How true it was. Not just sex play, but real. I fucking failed him and we are so fucked and all the people getting fucked over by their insurance companies are doubly fucked and the fifty million uninsured Americans are so, so fucked. And I kind of just -- I guess I just couldn't handle being literally fucked, when I thought of all that fucked-ness."

"Guilt porn," says Barney, "yeah, not very sexy. Hey, I get it, we've all got our Jewish guilt. But you know what? We've got a lot to do if we're ever going to finally get this thing done. Stop wallowing and get back to work. Or at least get back to sex. And then work. But for heavens' sake stop wallowing."

Rahm sighs and gnaws on his lip despairingly. "But it's so much my _fault_."

Barney huffs at him. "You're being pretty damn arrogant, you know."

Rahm half-shrugs. "That's what they pay me for. Job's so hard that anyone who had any doubts would never get anywhere."

"Yeah, and look how well it's working out for you here," Barney snaps. "So convinced everything's your fault that you just sit here wallowing, no use to anybody."

"And a fat fucking lot of good I did when I was working instead of wallowing," Rahm mutters bitterly. "So good I let a teabagger win in fucking Massachusetts."

"So because you didn't magically produce the right outcome in a race that _wasn't your responsibility_, the solution is to give up? Clearly that will be _much_ more effective!"

Rahm stares at the floor. "It _is_ my responsibility. Everything is my responsibility. You don't get to be White House Chief of Staff so you can sit around going 'Not my problem.' You sign up to help run the country, everything becomes your responsibility whether it rightfully should be or not. You _take_ responsibility."

"Rahm--" interrupts Barney, exasperated. "You can't take responsibility for everything! You're supposed to be the pragmatist here--"

"Fuck pragmatism!" Rahm nearly yells, cutting him off. "You take responsibility because there's _no one else_. Because there's millions of Americans playing by the rules and working hard and _trying_ to take responsibility, but sometimes car crashes or cancer -- or insurance companies -- don't give a flying _fuck_ about responsibility, okay? Do I really have to spell it out for you? My god, Barney, have you fucking_seen_ the kind of letters we get every day? The college kid who barely escaped death because a last-minute charity stepped in? The grandmother who's just waiting to die because she can't afford chemo? The families bankrupted, the children buried? That eleven-year-old kid from Seattle whose mother lost her health and then her job and then her insurance and then her life? We've tried pragmatism, Barney, and you know what it got us? Dead children. Dead fathers. Dead mothers. Ba -- the President -- he makes us sort through the letters and give him ten to read every day, and we try to make him slow down but he refuses, and do you have any fucking idea how hard it is on him? You think I can't see him remembering his mother fighting insurance companies as she lay dying of cancer? We've got the whole goddamn country sending us their despair, and I've got Barack's unspoken grief to face every day, and three months out from losing Ted Kennedy, we lose his Senate seat too, to a fucking teabagger, and -- and you tell me to suck it up and get back to work! Yeah, I'm supposedly ruthless, and Barack's supposed to be cool and detached and professorial, but Jesus _fuck_, Barney, we're human, after all. We practically need fucking bereavement leave here. Scott Brown's not such an important little shit, he's just -- the last straw. The last fucking straw. Barney, I can't fucking do this."

And at last Rahm looks up and stares Barney full in the face, and sees, behind the glasses, a suspicious glint of tears.

Barney pulls one hand out of Rahm's pants to push his glasses up on his nose, drawing a slightly shaky smile from Rahm. Then Barney pulls out his other hand, grasps Rahm's head gently in both hands, and presses a quiet kiss to his forehead.

"Yes we can," he whispers.

But Rahm replies with a noise that's half snuffle and half snort. "Hopey-changey campaign rhetoric doesn't get shit done and you know it. It doesn't change the fact that Congress is full of fuckfaces--"

"I beg your pardon--"

"Present company excepted -- or that we keep getting those damn letters--"

"No, listen. We _can_, and _you_ can, and I'm going to prove it to you."

"Oh yeah?"

"Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to jerk you off. I'm going to take my sweet time about it, and you're not going to be able to lay a hand on yourself. If you can get through that, you can do anything."

A strangled noise escapes Rahm's throat, just thinking about it. How excruciatingly agonizing it will be; how utterly irresistible. His hips twitch forward already, still clothed and against empty air.

And then things get a lot worse, because Barney drops to one knee as if to tie his shoelaces, but instead he pulls another rope from his pocket and ties Rahm's ankles to the legs of the heavy wing chair behind him. Still kneeling, he looks up at Rahm's face and smirks. His own face is embarrassingly close to Rahm's crotch. Embarrassing for Rahm, at least --- he can feel his face heating up, but Barney doesn't seem fazed in the least. On the contrary, he just stays there, staring up at Rahm. His breath flows warm and damp against the front of Rahm's pants, which are beginning to grow rather damp themselves.

But then Barney draws back and gets to his feet. Rahm half-heartedly wrestles against his bonds, gives up, and exhales a little too hard through his nose. "Well get on with it then."

Barney only hums complacently and then, without warning, sticks a hand down Rahm's pants again. He closes a tight, practiced hand around Rahm's impatient cock (Rahm swallows and closes his eyes) and pumps hard, fast enough to make Rahm gasp but slow enough for the sensation to sink in. Two, three times, just enough to fool Rahm into finding a rhythm, before Barney stops short. His hand remains, enclosing Rahm hot and strong, but it's dead still. Rahm shoots a glare at Barney and makes to jerk his hips back so as to regain the movement that Barney has stopped supplying.

At that, Barney releases his hold and withdraws his hand again. "Ah ah ah," he scolds, "I'm in charge here. You move, I stop. Don't want me to stop, then don't move. Got it?"

Rahm grits his teeth. "Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, Congressman."

"Good boy."

"Congressman Cocktease," Rahm mutters. Barney only smiles and instructs:

"Now, tell me how you're going to help get this bill passed. You think you can't work? Let's see how well you can work when getting off depends on it."

"Meetings with Blue Dogs," says Rahm dutifully, still very hot under the collar. "And -- Lieberman." He shudders a little. "Meetings with the President if necessary. I'll twist their arms, he'll make nice, good cop bad cop, you know how we do it."

"Rather uninspired," says Barney, "but points for trying." Suddenly his fingers are at Rahm's waist, nimbly unbuckling his belt.

"Don't get excited," Rahm says under his breath.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing. Movie I saw with the kids last month."

The belt comes off and Rahm's pants soon follow; they puddle around his ankles, leaving him exposed. Barney once again drops to his knees and leans in close, breath soft and tantalizing. But this time he opens wide and takes a voracious mouthful of Rahm. The enthusiastic wet warmth is so welcome, so -- delicious, that Rahm's legs almost give way. He catches himself in time because he remembers he's not supposed to move, but Barney's attentions wash over him like a tide and it's all he can do not to get swept away. He fists both hands in his suit jacket and moans as Barney's famously sharp tongue proves itself to be soft for once, soft and strong and graceful and absurdly skilled.

And, suddenly, absent.

Rahm opens his eyes and finds Barney smiling slyly up at him, mouth once more infuriatingly empty.

"So," says Barney conversationally, "Was that as good as the ban on rescissions will be? How about insurance for people with pre-existing conditions?"

"Better," gasps Rahm. "Better and you know it, so fucking get back here. I've solved the health care crisis, we'll just let you give everybody blowjobs and they'll be so sex-addled they won't care about anything else. They better be, anyway, 'cause that's the only way they're getting anything. You know Congress -- the President and I could break their arms or kiss their feet and they still won't pass it 'cause they're fucking Congress, _fuck_ them."

"Wrong answer," says Barney. "Bad boy. You want fucking, I'll show you _fucking_." He bends down again and unties the rope around Rahm's ankles, then pushes Rahm away from the chair. Rahm stumbles, lacks the free hands to help his balance, and falls heavily against the nearest wall. He thinks he's bruised his shoulder. Before he can check up on it, though, Barney grabs him and shoves him harder against the wall. There's a few seconds where Rahm's not sure what Barney's doing behind him, and then Barney shoves a finger inside him. At least it's lubed. It's also withdrawn quickly, only to be reinserted with a second finger that suddenly hits a spot that makes Rahm cry out against the wall, all thoughts of Congress gone. The cry rebounds against his own ears in an echoing haze of pleasure hot in his belly. He would beg for more but he thinks he's forgotten how. Fortunately Barney does exactly what Rahm wants -- he can feel Barney's body flush against his own, and he grabs for Barney's cock with the hands still tied behind his back -- and then Barney is pushing in slow and latex-sheathed and half-drowned in lube, slipperier than a senator you're trying to get a vote from. The lube is still cold enough to make Rahm stiffen and gasp, but then Barney thrusts his hips forward and Rahm gasps in an entirely different way, heat melting in his belly again, and this time he thinks his legs really would give out if Barney did not have him pinned against the wall.

"Ba -- Congressman -- could I have my hands back, _please_?"

"No. You still don't believe you can do this, and you have to. You'll manage without hands and you'll manage without a Democrat in Ted Kennedy's seat. I'm going to prove it to you."

Tears gather in Rahm's eyes anew, and this time they are tears not of grief and failure but of physical exertion, strain, desperation. His breath comes rough and harsh, pants beginning to lean into sobbing.

"You _will_ get the votes," Barney intones, serious and intense and encouraging and just a little commanding all at once. He emphasizes the "will," timing it to match the rhythm of his thrusts. "You _will_ get this bill done and it _will_ get passed and it _will_ save Americans' lives, and this administration _will_ succeed, and Teddy Kennedy's dream _will_ be reality. And you, Rahm, will have helped it become so. You can do this, Rahm. You _can. We_ can. We _all_ can. ...Yes we can," he adds as an afterthought.

"You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream," mutters Rahm between pants, eyes squeezed shut.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Rahm cracks open one eye. "Just trying to--" Barney gives a particularly unbearable snap of his hips, "--hold on here--ohh--" and Rahm quickly squeezes his eye shut again.

And then Barney steps away, leaving Rahm out in the cold.

Rahm gives a furious moan, edging on a yell. "Nng_ghhFUCK_ \-- Barney!"

"Remember, Rahm. You can do it!"

"Fuck you, I fucking can't -- get the fuck back here right fucking now!"

"Let's play a game. Every time you say 'fuck,' I wait one more minute before touching you again."

Rahm twists his head around to glares daggers at Barney, but clamps his jaw shut, grinds his teeth, and holds his tongue.

Barney reaches out and tightens the knots on the rope binding Rahm's wrists. Rahm squirms and whines. "Can you just--"

"Remember, Rahm: Yes you _can_."

"Fuck it, you know I can't!"

"That's one more minute," says Barney, and stares calmly at his watch.

"Fu-- _shit_."

"Half a minute," says Barney unforgivingly.

Rahm despairs. "Fine!" he snaps desperately, at last. "I can do it. I'll get back to work right after this. I won't even stop to take a shower, Congress can deal with me with stains all over my pants, will that make you happy? I'll pull out all the stops, I'll make damn sure they pass this motherfucker, just FINISH FUCKING ME ALREADY. Congressman," he adds.

And Barney claps a hand on Rahm's shoulder, shoves him back against the wall, and fucks him, wild, unrestrained, free. He even reaches around and closes Rahm's cock in his fist again, as if in reward, and Rahm breaks all the rules and thrusts into Barney's hand and lets an unremitting stream of "fuck"s pour from his mouth, and they're moving together in all the passion of loss and grief and shame and anger and despair and a finally-renewed flame of sheer pigheaded determination, a finally-reborn fierce spark of hope. Rahm lets his cries reach the rafters and beyond, all the way to the Capitol on its snowy hill -- a call of triumph and readiness for the work to come, a battle cry and a warning to all their opponents -- _Between the combined skills of the President, the Speaker, and me, you don't stand a chance_ \-- and so thinking reaches the peak of his passion and spills finally into Barney's fist, and finally collapses onto the floor.

Barney hastens to bend over him and untie his wrists. Rahm rolls over to face him, and finds Barney standing there breathing heavily but smiling down at him.

"And there's the solution," says Barney.

Rahm stares, pants dumbly.

"All you need to do is seduce all the bill's detractor's, get them good and horny and unable to do anything about it, and then make them promise to do what you want. Worked on _you_ like a charm."

Still lying on the floor, Rahm begins to smile. "We'll start, of course, with Scott Brown."

He grins his glint-eyed, shark-mouthed grin.

"Right in the back of his beloved fucking _truck_."

***

"So," says Barney, this time on a phone call born of joy instead of despair. "I heard the Vice President took a leaf out of your book today."

From the other end of the line comes Rahm's laughter, happy and bright. It's the first time Barney has heard him laugh -- really laugh, without a hint of rue or bitterness -- in longer than he can remember right now.

"Yeah, FOX News had a field day. But hey, I don't have a monopoly on the word 'fuck,' you know."

"Could have fooled me. During our little meeting in January I believe you only used it about fifty times."

Rahm laughs again (just because he can, Barney suspects). "It really _is_ a big fucking deal, though. Christ, man, after all this time..."

An exhausted but victorious smile lights Barney's face. "Yeah, you know we wanted to scream 'Amen' from the roof of the Capitol when we heard that."

"And to think I only had to screw half the House," Rahm says happily. "Plus the Senate, but I do that anyway. Scott Brown's a lying little shit, though, you know. Swore up and down he'd vote for the bill when I had him tied up with a hard-on the size of Massachusetts, and then I finished fucking him and the bastard goes and votes no like the rest of the knucklefucks."

"Ah well," says Barney, "at least he already has good insurance to take care of all those bruises you gave him."

There's a small, satisfied pause.

"Hey," Rahm says then, "thanks. For talking me through this, and doing your damnedest, and, uh...fucking me better than I've ever been fucked. Don't tell the President I said that, though."

"Practice makes perfect."

"Hey," Rahm says then. "You heard about Patrick Kennedy's note to his father?"

"'The unfinished business is done'?"

"Yeah. It's just...really something. I still can't quite believe it."

Barney smiles. "I told you you could do it."

"Um," says Rahm, sounding suddenly as if he is remembering a bit too vividly the circumstances under which Barney imparted this encouragement. "That reminds me. I think we have some still-unfinished business to attend to."

"Oh?"

"Never let it be said that Rahm Emanuel doesn't repay political favors," Rahm says, not sounding terribly bothered over being in debt. "Get your ass over here, Barney, I've got a certain rope you may recognize. Let's see how you like being tied up this time."

Barney laughs. "You don't even need my vote on anything."

Though Barney can't see, Rahm shrugs and grins. "What can I say? Fucking Congress turned out to be more fun than I thought."


End file.
